Summary: Edward let's his best friend, Jasper, talk him into hunting for mistletoe in the woods. What they find is much more than they bargained for. Anything can happen, under the mistletoe.

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight; all respective characters belong to SMeyer.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this. I don't even know how to use a shotgun." Stomping through the woods with my best friend Jasper, we looked for, of all things, mistletoe. Laughing at myself, I slowly shook my head. The great mistletoe hunt of 2010. Looking at him in disbelief, I couldn't fathom why he let our sisters talk us into this. Apparently, he didn't value our lives, because I was going to end up shooting him or myself or both probably; I just knew it. Huffing at the craziness of this situation, I followed him deeper into the woods.

Jasper and I have been friends since my family moved to Tennessee my junior year of high school about four years ago. My father got offered and accepted the head surgeon position for the Cardiac Unit of a level 1 trauma hospital in Tennessee. He and my mother told my twin sister and I that we were moving to a small town with a population of twenty-five thousand in a county that had only one high school. They told us that they always wanted to move out of the city and so here we were. I couldn't really complain though. If we had never moved, then I would have never met the boy that would become my best friend. We did everything together. Even now, we attended the same college in the city that my father's hospital was located.

Jasper and his twin sister, Rosalie, had lived here their entire lives. Jasper was raised in the country and was a country boy through and through. However, I was born and raised in the city, until we moved to this small town located forty miles from anything remotely civilized. All right, maybe I was exaggerating a little bit. Alice immediately became best friends with Rosalie and the four of us had been inseparable ever since.

Which brings me back to my current situation, trailing through the woods, carrying a loaded weapon, and looking for mistletoe. Alice and Rosalie convinced Jasper that we had to have mistletoe for our Christmas decorations. Every Thanksgiving, both our families got together to celebrate and decorate for the Christmas holiday. The tree and all the trimmings got put out over the holiday weekend. We had been celebrating this way since the Thanksgiving that we moved down here. It had become a tradition.

As I followed Jasper through the woods behind his family's home, I couldn't help notice how his lean body cut through the brush and trees effortlessly. He had always been a little bit more athletic than I was even though we participated on all the same sports teams. At that moment, Jasper stopped to bend over and pick up a stick to toss off the path and I found myself staring at his bent form. He had a nice ass, and I had seen him naked on several occasions during our lives in the gym showers or while changing in our rooms. Until recently, I never really thought much about how he looked, but I curbed those thoughts immediately. Neither Jasper, nor I, were gay and those thoughts just seemed inappropriate to me.

As we walked, I carried my shotgun as Jasper instructed me, towards the ground and away from him. He gave me a crash course on how to use it before we left the house. Even with his thorough instructions, I still was very uncomfortable with it and doubted that I would even fire the thing. If I could get out of it, I would. We trailed a few hundred feet more and Jasper stopped, looking up into the trees. The trees were bare of leaves this time of year, which should make it easier to find the mistletoe in the branches. According to Jasper, mistletoe was found in clusters of bright green with clear, white berries. He had warned me that the berries were poisonous and to be very careful when touching them.

Jasper had informed me before we left on this little adventure, that he had done this quite often as a child with his father. Jasper and Rosalie's parents died in a car accident about two years ago the summer after we all graduated from high school. It was devastating for them and my parents had taken over the role as surrogate parents to them ever since.

It had been years since he and his father had gone on their mistletoe hunts for his mother. When Jasper was younger, they would take off out the backyard into the woods to bond over their search for mistletoe. His mother would use it to decorate their home for the holidays much like Rosalie and Alice wanted to do today.

"I can't be sure, but I think this is where we always found it," Jasper stated as he stood, turning in a circle to look up into the canopy of trees above us.

Watching him as he searched skyward, I once again gazed at his form. His curly blond hair was a bit longer than I had ever seen it and flowed over the collar of his jacket. He had lost a few pounds these past two years since his parents' death, but he still had about twenty pounds on me. We were about the same height, but I was built slimmer.

"Hey, are you looking or daydreaming on me?" I was caught off guard with how close Jasper was to me when he asked me this.

"Sorry, where are we looking?" I asked as I tried to shift away from him to hide my half erection. I had been getting this kind of reaction from Jasper's close proximity for a few months now, and I didn't know exactly what to think about it. We had always been close, but not close like that. There was no way he would be interested in me that way; and I definitely didn't want to do anything to jeopardize our friendship. So, I pushed all these thoughts and feelings back and concentrated on just our friendship.

He pointed up towards a couple of treetops to the left of the trail. "Look up there and I will go look over here," he instructed me as he walked to the right of the path. Not sure of what I was looking for, I scanned the treetops for bunches of green and tried to not look like a complete idiot in front of him.

We searched for about fifteen minutes before I heard him call out to me from behind. Turning back towards his voice, I started walking. Being from the city originally, I really wasn't the outdoors-man type, so trudging through the brush and small trees was not my idea of a good time. Pointing the shotgun down as he had instructed, I picked my way to him. He was standing at the bottom of a very large and tall tree.

"I found some, but it's pretty high up. Do you want to try shooting it down?" He smiled at me and gestured up into the bare tree branches.

"Umm, not really. You go ahead," I stammered, not wanting to seem like a coward, but really not wanting to shoot the gun.

He stepped over to me and stood in front of me placing his hands on my shoulders. Noticing that he no longer had his shotgun, I leaned over his shoulder to see that he had leaned it against the base of the tree.

"You need to try at least once. Here, I'll help you." Jasper came around behind me and trailed his left hand across my shoulders and down my left arm to where I was gripping the shotgun. Holding my breath, I was embarrassed at how my body was reacting to his touch. Never before had I felt this way about him. Feeling my cock hardening in my jeans, I tried to shift to make myself more comfortable. I was so glad that he was standing behind me now, and not where he could see my very obvious erection.

He pressed his back to me and I could feel his hips against my ass. He reached around with his right hand and asked me to bring the shotgun up to my right shoulder. Acting on autopilot, I did as he said and settled the butt of the gun into my shoulder. Controlling my breathing was becoming a problem, I was shocked at how strongly I was reacting to his body pressed against mine.

"Place the butt of the gun right next to your shoulder. Good. Now, tilt it up and look down the sight. It's a shotgun so you don't have to be perfect with your aim," he whispered his instructions into my left ear and I could feel his warm breath against me. Shivering, I obeyed his instructions and sighted the mistletoe for the shot.

"Do you have it in your sights?" I nodded my head afraid that if I spoke he would hear the desire in my voice.

"Good. Now just slowly squeeze the trigger, very gently."

Slowly, I squeezed the trigger and fired the shot. The hard kick from the shotgun was more than I had expected, and it threw me off balance. Jasper released my shoulders and quickly grabbed me around the waist to keeps us from falling. We were both laughing as the mistletoe and debris from the tree kept raining down on us.

Looking around the ground at our feet, I saw that there were several nice bunches of the mistletoe to take back to our sisters. We were laughing and picking up the mistletoe and generally having a great time. Never would I have thought, I could have this much fun out in the woods.

Grabbing the last big bunch of mistletoe, I stood up to find Jasper standing directly in front of me. He was staring at me with this odd expression on his face. My smile faded a bit and I wondered what was wrong. He took a step towards me and raised his hand up to my hair. Reaching to run my hand through my hair, he caught my wrist and reached up himself. I could only imagine what chaos it was in at this point.

He pulled something from my hair, and I realized that I must have some mistletoe in there. Smiling again, I started to make a joke when he leaned into me while keeping the mistletoe above my head. He was so close to me that I could feel his breath on my lips. Frozen in shock, my heart rate picked up and I started to sweat. What was he doing?

With a smile that could light up the gray sky, he whispered, "We shouldn't waste perfectly good mistletoe. It's tradition," and with that, he leaned forward and touched his lips to mine.

At first, I didn't respond. My eyes wide in disbelief, I was so shocked that he was kissing me. Jasper. My best friend was kissing me. And, I liked it. At that point, I began kissing him back. He dropped the mistletoe and grabbed my hair with both his hands and pushed his body against mine. Moaning into his mouth, I searched for his tongue with my own. My entire body was alive. I felt like I was burning from the inside out. Never in my life had I experienced a kiss as wonderful as this.

Reaching for his hips, I pulled him to me so that our groins were touching. He whimpered as soon as our jean covered erections touched. Hearing him vocalize his need only encouraged me and I ground my erection against his. His hands left my hair and traveled down my back to grasp my ass firmly causing another embarrassing moan to escape from my throat. We finally had to break apart after a few minutes to catch our breaths. We were staring at each other and panting. In awe, I stood in front of my best friend of fours years unable to comprehend what had just taken place.

"What was that?" I breathed.

He shrugged and eased his hold on me. Not wanting to let him go, I held him tighter. Lifting his chin up to me, I placed a gentle kiss on his lips. He smiled and gave my ass another firm squeeze.

"I've wanted to do that for a while now, but I didn't know how you felt about me. I hope this means that you feel the same way," Jasper explained timidly. Jasper wasnever shy or timid. That was a side of him that I had never seen before.

"I think maybe it does. I have felt something for a while too, but I wasn't sure what was going on. I'm glad that you took this chance." He gave me another quick kiss and released me.

"We better head back before Rosalie and Alice come out to search for us." He started back down the trail the way we came glancing back at me over his shoulder.

"Yeah, I hope they are happy with this mistletoe." Reaching my hand forward, I took his hand and threaded our fingers together. Knowing I wasn't ready for anyone to find out about us quite yet, I felt comfortable showing him affection out here in the woods where no one could see us. His hand was cold from the bitter November air, but I held on tight. It just felt right.

As we made it back to the house, we released our hands and came in through the kitchen door. We unloaded our mistletoe onto the dining room table and turned to Rose and Ali.

"Here you go, girls. I hope this is enough. I guess if it's not we can go back out tomorrow." Turning, I gave Jasper a quick look that said maybe we would go out again anyway. He had a huge smile on his face and I took that as a yes. I turned to Rose and Ali to get their reaction to our bounty and noticed that they were both watching Jasper.

Rosalie nudged Jasper's shoulder and stated, "Well, how did it go?" Watching their exchange with some confusion, I glanced down at Alice. She started giggling beside me and threaded her arm through mine.

Looking from Alice to Rosalie to Jasper, I finally asked, "What are you guys going on about?"Jasper was grinning and he had blushed up his neck and face. I had a sinking feeling that I was left out of some joke. Then it hit me like a truck. The girls knew. They all knew.

"Was this a set up to get us out there alone under the mistletoe?" Glaring back and forth between the three of them I asked.

Rose was the one to finally speak up, "Yes, Alice and I were tired of hearing Jasper pine over you for the past few months so we set this little scenario up. And it worked." Flipping her long blond hair over her shoulder, she appeared to be quite pleased with herself. Completely taken by surprise, I continued to look between the three of them. Breaking out of my haze, I walked over to Jasper with a few quick steps and grabbed him by the shoulders. He was looking at me with frightened, wide eyes and I could see the uncertainty and fear in his expression.

"So, you were in on this set up." I let my hands travel down his sides to his hips and pulled his pelvis into mine. He gave a little whimper, as I looked him in the eyes.

He stuttered out a yes and I could see that he was both worried and turned on by my reaction. Smiling at him, I tilted my head and brought my lips towards his very slowly. He was smiling then and reached forward and grabbed my arms.

As I leaned into the kiss I whispered to him, "I guess I'll never complain about hunting mistletoe ever again."

With a smile that grew even wider, he put his arms around me and held me tight, "I guess not."

Closing the last few inches our lips met, and I thought how I would always be grateful for and never forget the great mistletoe hunt of 2010.

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